Digital lighting technologies, i.e. illumination based on semiconductor light sources, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), today offer a viable alternative to traditional fluorescent, HID, and incandescent lamps. Recent advances in LED technology coupled with its many functional advantages such as high energy conversion and optical efficiency, durability, and lower operating costs, has led to the development of efficient and robust full-spectrum lighting sources that enable a variety of lighting effects. For example, fixtures embodying these lighting sources may include one or more LEDs capable of producing different colors, e.g. red, green, and blue, as well as a processor for independently controlling the output of the LEDs in order to generate a variety of colors and color-changing lighting effects, as discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,016,038 and 6,211,626.
Controllable lighting networks and systems include lighting management systems that are capable of utilizing digital lighting technologies in order to control the lighting in one or more spaces. Controllable lighting networks and systems may control luminaires in a space based on the personal lighting preferences of individuals detected within or otherwise associated with a space. Many controllable lighting networks and systems utilize sensor systems to receive information about the spaces under their influence. Such information may include the identities of individuals detected within such spaces as well as the personal lighting preferences associated with such individuals. Consequently, controllable lighting systems used today permit users to control the lighting by applying personal preferences. Recent research studies conducted indicate that personal control of lighting can result in significant improvement in employee satisfaction, motivation and well-being. This causal link between personal control and performance validates the impact that quality lighting, where quality is measured based on satisfaction of personal preferences, can have on how people perform in the workplace.
From a user's perspective, many conventional systems and techniques for implementing lighting control often offer little more than lamp dimming according to previously entered preferences. For example, in many known systems, a user's lighting preferences for a specific environment can be programmed by a building administrator. The system can then control the environment's lights to implement the user's preferred lighting arrangement. In this manner, an office worker who prefers to have his or her workspace brightly lit, or alternatively dimly lit, can have the system programmed accordingly by an administrator. Similarly, administrators can schedule “on” and “off” time periods according to a user's work schedule to save energy.
Other known systems feature direct-indirect fluorescent luminaires with integrated occupancy and daylight sensors that communicate with a central controller via an RS-485 hardwired network. The central controller then communicates via a local area network (LAN) with desktop computers. This system enables office workers to dim task (direct) and ambient (indirect) lighting over their workstations and turn task and ambient lighting on and off using personal lighting control software installed on their computers. The system also permits office managers to: assign control to individual luminaires, groups, areas, and the entire lighting network; enable and disable luminaire daylight sensors; enable and disable luminaire occupancy sensors; specify occupancy sensor delay times; independently specify task and ambient lamp control; enable and disable load shedding; generate detailed energy consumption reports; and schedule daily, weekly, monthly, and annual events. In this sense, this system and similar conventional products may be considered as extensions of building management systems that also manage HVAC and security subsystems.
Lighting systems also have been disclosed in which a user can input his or her lighting preferences for a specific location, and a central controller can execute a lighting script to instruct LEDs or other light sources and implement the person's preferences. In one conventional approach, lighting systems may receive inputs indicating the presence of a person, the duration of the person's presence, or identifying the presence of a particular person or persons present in the location by, for example, the magnetic reading of name badges or a biometric evaluation. Different lighting scripts may then be implemented depending upon whether a person is present, how long the person is present, and which person is present. These systems may also select different lighting scripts depending on the number of persons in a room or the direction the people are facing. For example, lighting devices and other energy sources can be turned on or off depending on information in a person's electronic calendar.
Some conventional lighting systems can receive information regarding a person's presence or the person's preferences from a device carried by a user. For example, in some disclosed systems, a card reader can detect the presence of a card carried by a user, which can then cause the system to turn a light on when, for example, the user enters a room and turn off the light when the user exits the room. In other disclosed lighting systems, a user stores his or her preferences on a mobile device or card. As the user travels, data can be transferred to devices and systems capable of conforming parameters under their control to the stored preferences (e.g., dim lights or change their color), either through automatic detection of the card or, in other systems, by inserting the card into a card reader.
While advances in digital lighting technologies have given rise to precisely controllable lighting, the known systems for implementing user preferences require the repetitive task of setting the lighting in a networked or non-networked system. While users may be willing to manually enter a small number of preferences in one lighting system, there are so many variables that may be adjusted with today's solid state lighting and electronic devices that the lighting system may not be fully leveraged.
Although the fields of mobile devices and digital or solid-state lighting have seen great advances, systems that combine the use of controllable solid state lighting and personal mobile devices to further enrich deriving personal lighting preferences and adjusting lighting based on personal preferences across a plurality of lighting networks are lacking. For example, in systems implementing user preferences, a user's preferences generally (1) need to be initially manually entered for every single variable that may be adjusted and (2) are specific to a particular location and not executable in a different location or in different networks.